Lucky?

 

Audrey and I planted a fruit tree orchard of over 100 trees when we first started our life on our own farm, and after a few years of nurturing it we had stacks of beautiful fruit of all types. Many people who visited us, when the fruit was ripe, would say “aren’t you lucky to have such beautiful fruit?”

I went to the Dubbo Show this week and was pleased to see that one of my Great Granddaughters won a first prize for her Lolly necklace and her younger brother won third, there were many entries but not all can win unfortunately. However, her older brother also constructed an interesting Lego work as you see below the necklace. The same person who thought that Audrey and I were “lucky” to have nice fruit on our farm, might think that these children were “lucky” to have won prizes at the Show, but none of it was luck. It was either hard work, tenacity, ability and determination, or a combination of the lot; these types of outcomes are not achieved
by “luck,” and precious little is achieved that way. The Pavilion was graced by a lot of very skilled and gifted people who created very lovely work, and we give them credit for it, as we know that where there is a beautiful design there is a creative mind behind it.  There are a lot of people who have artistic minds and arrange flowers beautifully, but it is the flowers themselves that we admire most as they are all different, incredibly designed and coloured, so are a silent witness to the fact that there is a remarkable mind that did create them. What a shame that children, in the public school system, and we ourselves who watch Television are constantly bombarded by atheistic belief that nothing was designed by an intelligent God, but everything was the result of an accidental evolutionary process. They apply this to us too, of course: our incredible “computer” brains are supposed to have designed themselves. Our remarkable eyes are like cameras that automatically adjust to light and distance and store what they see in the memory bank of our brains. The tongue has tastebuds and produces saliva that makes eating more enjoyable, and the stomach converts the food we eat into energy and cell building. As for the Cardiovascular system it is incredibly intricate, supplying blood that is “laced” with all the necessary ingredients to strengthen every part of our body to keep us going. Yet they refuse to acknowledge that an intelligent mind created all this.

  

How to Beat a Drought

 

A lady talking to me at the Mall recently said: “Isn’t this drought dreadful? I have prayed and prayed to God but He seems to ignore my prayers.” Well that is a shame because the farmers can’t plant their crops and the stock have very little to eat, and with winter at our door the outlook is devastating and not just for farmers, we all suffer in some way.

What’s the problem? Is God deaf? Or doesn’t He care? Now if we could sit in on a hypothetical “Boardroom meeting” where God  is talking to His angels, we might see the other side of this discussion as we hear God reiterating His previous direction made to Moses on this very subject where He said, among other things, that “If you carefully obey all the commandments I am giving you today, and if you love the Lord your God and serve Him with all your heart and soul, then He will send the rains in their proper season-the early and the late rains- so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine and olive oil. He will give you lush pasture land for your livestock, and you yourselves will have all you want to eat. But be careful, don’t let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the lord…. If you do, the Lord’s anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvests” Deuteronomy: (Chapter 11 and verse 14)

Now God made that statement through Moses in the Old Testament several thousand years ago and successive generations have ignored it to the extent that we now look on droughts as normal events which they were not meant to be (according to the above). God in His goodness doesn’t let us die out though, or drown in another worldwide flood, (as He did in Noah’s day), but keeps us aware that things could be

good by giving us good years amongst the bad ones, in the hope that we will wake up and follow the directions he gave. So there it is, as plain as the nose on your face: God is not deaf, it is just that we as a nation either can’t read, or aren’t interested in what God wants. Consequently, we should not complain, but if we as a nation want to prosper we need to comply with our God’s directions by not living lives and passing laws that are contrary to what He tells us to do.

As Individuals though, we should pray in faith believing, and God will supply all our individual needs, as He has promised in Philippians 4:19. But even here we need to be sure that our behaviours and the things we have become accustomed to are acceptable to God, because they may not be, and that would make it hard for God to bless us. My Dad used to quote a statement which said: “First you abhor, then you pity, then you endure, and then embrace.” I believe this is true, so we can easily find ourselves embracing and approving things that are questionable.  And of course the Media people, and others, try to control our thinking and exploit our emotions like love, hate, fear, greed and lust.  There is a good example of this where the “Soapies” (like “Home and Away”) that were just “low quality entertainment”, some years ago, have gradually become degrading, and are now unfit for God’s people’s entertainment.

“Goodness Tom, that is a strong statement” someone might say, “how did you arrive at that conclusion?” Well Christian thinking, as set out in the New Testament, (Philippians 4:8) says that we should think on whatsoever “things that are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think on these things.” So if what we are watching on T.V. a DVD or the Internet, or even a book, does not measure up to that standard, set out by God as a guide for us, then it needs to go. I know that sounds very “narrow minded”, but Jesus did say in Matthew 7: 13 & 14, that “narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it, and broad is the way that leads to destruction and many go that way.”  Back in the Old Testament in 2 Chronicles Chapter 7 and Verse 14 God says “If my people, who are called by my name would humble themselves and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from Heaven, forgive their sin and heal their land.” So there is a lot to consider here.

For starters we need to ask God’s forgiveness for our past sins and disobedience and then endeavour to earnestly comply with Jesus instruction that we “love God and love our neighbour as we love ourselves”. Of course it is hard to comply with God’s other wishes if we don’t know what they are, so we really need to do some bible study to find out, don’t we? And as individuals get our behaviour right, because that is important for our personal salvation. But our nation needs a lot of prayer if it is to get its act together, don’t you think?   Best wishes, Tom

Dogs and Tuckerboxes

 

There is an old song that I used to sing 70 years ago which goes like this: “My Mabel

waits for me, underneath the bright blue sky, where the dog sits on the Tucker Box five miles from Gundagai.” Well, Mabel must have become impatient and “shot through,” because last week I went down to Gundagai and Mabel was nowhere to be seen, however a replica of the dog was there. It is strange really as the dog was extremely unpopular with his owner for doing what he was doing at the time. You see, his owner was a bullock-wagon driver named Bill and in the 1850s he was trying to cross a creek, five miles from Gundagai with a wagon like the one pictured, only his one was heavily laden with supplies and became hopelessly bogged to the extent that the yoke joining the wagon to the bullock team snapped under the weight. Being worn out, tired and depressed, Bill decided to have his lunch before he endeavoured to fix the problem but found the dog sitting on the lunch-box. For some reason, (not documented), this didn’t cheer Bill up at all, and his fellow bullockies wrote a poem about it, immortalising the dog.

I find it very interesting that we often preserve old buildings and old equipment like this old wagon, and even a dog, but think very little about the pioneers who were involved with them. I am very pleased to say though, that the servicemen and women who fought and died to keep our country free and also helped others to maintain their freedom as well, are not forgotten on A.N.Z.A.C. day and other services yearly, because it is people who are the important part of our civilisation, not machines and infrastructure, (not that those things don’t have their place) but comparatively speaking their value is very limited).

I have great respect for the pioneers like Bill, who opened up this country of ours by clearing tracks across the mountains, making roads and building slab huts to house supplies for travellers at the various “staging posts” along these tracks. They had no comforts supplied, but just the very basic needs, and had to suffer the most difficult situations with no doctors or dentists or the modern cons that we all take for granted.   I “roughed it” in a cabin at Gundagai the other day with a comfortable bed, electric blanket, television, refrigeration, air conditioning, electric stove and microwave, not to mention the mobile phone. I can’t imagine what Bill would have said if he had suddenly appeared. Which begs the question: Where is Bill? Well I can tell you this much, there are only two possibilities: He is either living it up in one of the “mansions” Jesus went to prepare for us, and is enjoying more luxury than I had at Gundagai the other night, or else he is in “outer darkness in Hell” which was the only other option that Jesus said was available. The next question is “did Bill realise that there were those two options?” Well it would be someone’s dreadful neglect if he didn’t know, because Jesus said that His followers were to go into all the world and preach the good news, of His saving grace, to everyone. And “everyone” means exactly that: there isn’t a person in the entire world (irrespective of their education or up bringing) who isn’t eligible to claim Jesus saving Grace, for “Jesus came not into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved” and “world” there means “people” like you and me and Bill, who make up the world. (John chapter 3 and verse 17).

 I enjoy talking about old times, so I hope that I will catch up with Bill in Heaven one day and be able to “compare notes” with him. Don’t be embarrassed to join us, if you want to, when you get there. That is assuming you also make the right choice and get there yourself. If not, don’t look for me in the other place because I won’t be there as I have already claimed the Passport to heaven, that Jesus made available for each one of us. Personally, I reckon that a free gift like that is too good an offer to pass up.

Besides, I don’t like excessive heat.

Best wishes, Tom.